Psychopathology of everyday life (s freud, 1901)

Psychopathology of Everyday Life Sigmund Freud Psychopathology of Everyday Life Sigmund Freud (1901) Translation by A A Brill (1914) CONTENTS Introduction Chapter Forgetting of Proper Names Chapter Forgetting of Foreign Words Chapter Forgetting of Names and Order of Words Chapter Childhood and Concealing Memories Chapter Mistakes in Speech Chapter Mistakes in Reading and Writing Chapter Forgetting of Impressions and Resolutions Chapter Erroneously Carried-out Actions Chapter Symptomatic and Chance Actions Chapter 10 Errors Chapter 11 Combined Faulty Acts Chapter 12 Determinism, Chance, and Superstitious Beliefs INTRODUCTION Professor Freud developed his system of psychoanalysis while studying the so-called borderline cases of mental diseases, such as hysteria and compulsionneurosis By discarding the old methods of treatment and strictly applying himself to a study of the patient's life he discovered that the hitherto puzzling symptoms had a definite meaning, and that there was nothing arbitrary in any morbid manifestation Psychoanalysis always showed that they referred to some definite problem or conflict of the person concerned It was while tracing back the abnormal to the normal state that Professor Freud found how faint the line of demarcation was between the normal and neurotic person,and that the psychopathologic mechanisms so glaringly observed in the psychoneuroses and psychoses could usually be demonstrated in a lesser degree in normal persons This led to a study of the faulty actions of everyday life and later to the publication of the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, a book which passed through four editions in Germany and is considered the author's most popular work With great ingenuity and penetration the author throws much light on the complex problems of human behavior, and clearly demonstrates that the hitherto considered impassable gap between normal and abnormal mental states is more apparent than real This translation is made of the fourth German edition, and while the original text was strictly followed, linguistic difficulties often madeit necessary to modify or substitute some of the author's cases by examples comprehensible to the English-speaking reader New York A A Brill CHAPTER Forgetting of Proper Names During the year 1898 I published a short essay On the Psychic Mechanism of Forgetfulness.[1] I shall now repeat its contents and take it as a starting-point for further discussion I have there undertaken a psychologic analysis of a common case of temporary forgetfulness of proper names, and from a pregnant example of my own observation I have reached the conclusion that this frequent and practically unimportant occurrence of a failure of a psychic function of memory admits an explanation which goes beyond the customary utilization of this phenomenon If an average psychologist should be asked to explain how it happens that we often fail to recall a name which we are sure we know, he would probably content himself with the answer that proper names are more apt to be forgotten than any other content of memory He might give plausible reasons for this "forgetting pre- [p 4] ference" for proper names, but he would not assume any deep determinant for the process I was led to examine exhaustively the phenomenon of temporary forgetfulness through the observation of certain peculiarities, which, although not general, can, nevertheless, be seen clearly in some cases In these there is not only forgetfulness, but also false recollection: he who strives for the escaped name brings to consciousness others substitutive names which, although immediately recognized as false, nevertheless obtrude themselves with great tenacity The process which should lead to the reproduction of the lost name is, as it were, displaced, and thus brings one to an incorrect substitute Now it is my assumption that the displacement is not left to psychic arbitrariness, but that it follows lawful and rational paths In other words, I assume that the substitutive name (or names) stands in direct relation to the lost name, and I hope, if I succeed in demonstrating this connection, to throw light on the origin of the forgetting of names In the example which I selected for analysis in 1898 I vainly strove to recall the name of the master who made the imposing frescoes of the "Last Judgment" in the dome of Orvieto Instead of the lost name Signorelli -two other names of artists Botticelli and Boltraffio obtruded themselves, names which my judg- [p 5] ment immediately and definitely rejected as being incorrect When the correct name was imparted to me by an outsider I recognized it at once without any hesitation The examination of the influence and association paths which caused the displacement from Signorelli to Botticelli and Boltraffio led to the following results:-(a) The reason for the escape of the name Signorelli is neither to be sought in the strangeness in itself of this name nor in the psychologic character of the connection in which it was inserted The forgotten name was just as familiar to me as one of the substitutive names Botticelli and somewhat more familiar than the other substitute Boltraffio of the possessor of which I could hardly say more than that he belonged to the Milanese School The connection, too, in which the forgetting of the name took place appeared to me harmless, and led to no further explanation I journeyed by carriage with a stranger from Ragusa, Dalmatia, to a station in Herzegovina Our conversation drifted to travelling in Italy, and I asked my companion whether he had been in Orvieto and had seen there the famous frescoes of -(b) The forgetting of the name could not be explained until after I had recalled the theme discussed immediately before this conversation This forgetting then made itself known as a [p 6] disturbance of the newly emerging theme caused by the theme preceding it In brief, before I asked my travelling companion if he had been in Orvieto we had been discussing the customs of the Turks living in Bosnia and Herzegovina I had related what I heard from a colleague who was practising medicine among them, namely, that they show full confidence in the physician and complete submission to fate When one is compelled to inform them that there is no help for the patient, they answer: "Sir (Herr), what can I say? I know that if he could be saved you would save him." In these sentences alone we can find the words and names: Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Herr (sir), which may be inserted in an association series between Signorelli, Botticelli, and Boltraffio (c) I assume that the stream of thoughts concerning the customs of the Turks in Bosnia, etc., was able to disturb the next thought, because I withdrew my attention from it before it came to an end For I recalled that I wished to relate a second anecdote which was next to the first in my memory These Turks value the sexual pleasure above all else, and at sexual disturbances merge into an utter despair which strangely contrasts with their resignation at the peril of losing their lives One of my colleague's patients once told him: "For you know, sir (Herr), if that ceases, life no longer has any charm." [p 7] I refrained from imparting this characteristic feature because I did not wish to touch upon such a delicate theme in conversation with a stranger But I went still further; I also deflected my attention from the continuation of the thought which might have associated itself in me with the theme "Death and Sexuality." I was at that time under the after-effects of a message which I had received a few weeks before, during a brief sojourn in Trafoi A patient on whom I had spent much effort had ended his life on account of an incurable sexual disturbance I know positively that this sad event, and everything connected with it, did not come to my conscious recollection on that trip in Herzegovina However, the agreement between Trafoi and Boltraffio forces me to assume that this reminiscence was at that time brought to activity despite all the intentional deviation of my attention (d) I can no longer conceive the forgetting of the name Signorelli as an accidental occurrence I must recognize in this process the influence of a motive There were motives which actuated the interruption in the communication of my thoughts (concerning the customs of the Turks, etc.), and which later influenced me to exclude from my consciousness the thought connected with them, and which might have led to the message concerning the incident in [p 8] Trafoi that is, I wanted to forget something, I repressed something To be sure, I wished to forget something other than the name of the master of Orvieto; but this other thought brought about an associative connection between itself and this name, so that my act of volition missed the aim, and I forgot the one against my will, while I intentionally wished to forget the other The disinclination to recall directed itself against the one content; the inability to remember appeared in another The case would have been obviously simpler if this disinclination and the inability to remember had concerned the same content The substitutive names no longer seem so thoroughly justified as they were before this explanation They remind me (after the form of a compromise) as much of what I wished to forget as of what I wished to remember, and show me that my object to forget something was neither a perfect success nor a failure (e) The nature of the association formed between the lost name and the repressed theme (death and sexuality, etc.), containing the names of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Trafoi, is also very strange In the scheme inserted here, which originally appeared in 1898, an attempt is made to graphically represent these associations The name Signorelli was thus divided into two parts One pair of syllables (elli) returned [p 9] [p 10] unchanged in one of the substitutions, while the other had gained, through the translation of signor (sir, Herr), many and diverse relations to the name contained in the repressed theme, but was lost through it in the reproduction Its substitution was formed in a way to suggest that a displacement took place along the same associations "Herzegovina and Bosnia" regardless of the sense and acoustic demarcation The names were therefore treated in this process like the written pictures of a sentence which is to be transformed into a picturepuzzle (rebus) No information was given to consciousness concerning the whole process, which, instead of the name Signorelli, was thus changed to the substitutive names At first sight no relation is apparent between the theme that contained the name Signorelli and the repressed one which immediately preceded it Perhaps it is not superfluous to remark that the given explanation does not contradict the conditions of memory reproduction and forgetting assumed by other psychologists, which they seek in certain relations and dispositions Only in certain cases have we added another motive to the factors long recognized as causative in forgetting names, and have thus laid bare the mechanism of faulty memory The assumed dispositions are indispensable also in our case, in order to make it possible for the repressed [p 11] element to associatively gain control over the desired name and take it along into the repression Perhaps this would not have occurred in another name having more favourable conditions of reproduction For it is quite probable that a suppressed element continually strives to assert itself in some other way, but attains this success only where it meets with suitable conditions At other times the suppression succeeds without disturbance of function, or, as we may justly say, without symptoms When we recapitulate the conditions for forgetting a name with faulty recollection we find: (1) a certain disposition to forget the same; (2) a process of suppression which has taken place shortly before; and (3) the possibility of establishing an outer association between the concerned name and the element previously suppressed The last condition will probably not have to be much overrated, for the slightest claim on the association is apt in most cases to bring it about But it is a different and farther-reaching question whether such outer association can really furnish the proper condition to enable the suppressed element to disturb the reproduction of the desired name, or whether after all a more intimate connection between the two themes is not necessarily required On superficial consideration one may be willing to reject the latter requirement and consider the [p 12] temporal meeting in perfectly dissimilar contents as sufficient But on more thorough examination one finds more and more frequently that the two elements (the repressed and the new one) connected by an outer association, possess besides a connection in content, and this can also be demonstrated in the example Signorelli The value of the understanding gained through the analysis of the example Signorelli naturally depends on whether we must explain this case as a typical or as an isolated process I must now maintain that the forgetting of a name associated with faulty recollection uncommonly often follows the same process as was demonstrated in the case of Signorelli Almost every time that I observed this phenomenon in myself I was able to explain it in the manner indicated above as being motivated by repression I must mention still another view-point in favour of the typical nature of our analysis I believe that one is not justified in separating the cases of name-forgetting with faulty recollection from those in which incorrect substitutive names have not obtruded themselves These substitutive names occur spontaneously in a number of cases; in other cases, where they not come spontaneously, they can be brought to the surface by concentration of attention, and they then show the same relation to the repressed element and the lost name as those that come [p 13] spontaneously Two factors seem to play a part in bringing to consciousness the substitutive names: first, the effort of attention, and second, and inner determinant which adheres to the psychic material I could find the latter in the greater or lesser facility which forms the required outer associations between the two elements A great many of the cases of name-forgetting without faulty recollection therefore belong to the cases with substitutive name formation, the mechanism of which corresponds to the one in the example Signorelli But I surely shall not venture to assert that all cases of name-forgetting belong to the same group There is no doubt that there are cases of name-forgetting that proceed in a much simpler way We shall represent this state of affairs carefully enough if we assert that besides the simple forgetting of proper names there is another forgetting which is motivated by repression Footnotes [1] Monatschrift f Psychiatrie CHAPTER Forgetting of Foreign Words The ordinary vocabulary of our own language seems to be protected against forgetting within the limits of normal function, but it is quite different with words from a foreign language The tendency to forget such words extends to all parts of speech In fact, depending on our own general state and the degree of fatigue, the first manifestation of functional disturbance evinces itself in the irregularity of our control over foreign vocabulary In a series of cases this forgetting follows the same mechanism as the one revealed in the example Signorelli As a demonstration of this I shall report a single analysis, characterized, however, by valuable features, concerning the forgetting of a word, not a noun, from a Latin quotation Before proceeding, allow me to give a full and clear account of this little episode Last summer, while journeying on my vacation, I renewed the acquaintance of a young man of academic education, who, as I soon noticed, was conversant with some of my works In our con- [p 18] versation we drifted I no longer remember how to the social position of the race to which we both belonged He, being ambitious, bemoaned the fact that his generation, as he expressed it, was destined to grow crippled, that it was prevented from developing its talents and from gratifying its desires He concluded his passionately felt speech with the familiar verse from Virgil: Exoriare in which the unhappy Dido leaves her vengeance upon Ỉneasto posterity Instead of "concluded," I should have said "wished to conclude," for he could not bring the quotation to an end, and attempted to conceal the open gap in his memory by transposing the words: -"Exoriar(e) ex nostris ossibus ultor!" He finally became piqued and said: "Please don't make such a mocking face, as if you were gloating over my embarrassment, but help me There is something missing in this verse How does it read in its complete form?" "With pleasure," I answered, and cited it correctly: -"Exoriar(e) aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!" "It is too stupid to forget such a word," he said "By the way, I understand you claim that forgetting is not without its reasons; I should be very curious to find out how I came to forget this indefinite pronoun 'aliquis.'" [p 19] I gladly accepted the challenge, as I hoped to get an addition to my collection, and said, "We can easily this, but I must ask you to tell me frankly and without any criticism everything that occurs to your mind after you focus your attention, without any particular intention, on the forgotten word."[1] "Very well, the ridiculous idea comes to me to divide the word in the following way: a and liquis." "What does that mean?" "I don't know." "What else does that recall to you?" "The thought goes on to reliques liquidation liquidity fluid." "Does that mean anything to you now?" "No, not by a long shot." "Just go ahead." "I now think," he said, laughing sarcastically, "of Simon of Trent, whose relics I saw two years ago in a church in Trent I think of the old accusation which has been brought against the Jews again, and of the work of Kleinpaul, who sees in these supposed sacrifices reincarnations or revivals, so to speak, of the Saviour." "This stream of thoughts has some connection [p 20] with the theme which we discussed before the Latin word escaped you." "You are right I now think of an article in an Italian journal which I have recently read I believe it was entitled: 'What St Augustine said Concerning Women.' What can you with this?" I waited "Now I think of something which surely has no connection with the theme." "Oh, please abstain from all criticism, and " "Oh, I know! I recall a handsome old gentleman whom I met on my journey last week He was really an original type He looked like a big bird of prey His name, if you care to know, is Benedict." "Well, at least you give a grouping of saints and Church fathers: St Simon, St Augustine, and St Benedict I believe that there was a Church father named Origines Three of these, moreover, are Christian names, like Paul in the name Kleinpaul." "Now I think of St Januarius and his blood miracle I find that the thoughts are running mechanically." "Just stop a moment; both St Januarius and St Augustine have something to with the calendar Will you recall to me the blood miracle?" [p 21] "Don't you know about it? The blood of St Januarius is preserved in a phial in a church in Naples, and on a certain holiday a miracle takes place causing it to liquefy The people think a great deal of this miracle, and become very excited if the liquefying process is retarded, as happened once during the French occupation The General in command or Garibaldi, if I am not mistaken then took the priest aside, and with a very significant gesture pointed out to him the soldiers arrayed without, and expressed his hope that the miracle would soon take place And it actually took place " "Well, what else comes to your mind? Why you hesitate?" "Something really occurred to me but it is too intimate a matter to impart besides, I see no connection and no necessity for telling it." "I will take care of the connection Of course I cannot compel you to reveal what is disagreeable to you, but then you should not have demanded that I tell you why you forgot the word 'aliquis.'" "Really? Do you think so? Well, I suddenly thought of a woman from whom I could easily get a message that would be very annoying to us both." "That she missed her courses?" "How could you guess such a thing?" [p 22] "That was not very difficult You prepared me for it long enough Just think of the saints of the calendar, the liquefying of the blood on a certain day, the excitement if the event does not take place, and the distinct threat that the miracle must take place Indeed, you have elaborated the miracle of St Januarius into a clever allusion to the courses of the woman." "It was surely without my knowledge And you really believe that my inability to reproduce the word 'aliquis' was due to this anxious expectation?" "That appears to me absolutely certain Don't you recall dividing it into a-liquis and the associations: reliques, liquidation, fluid? Shall I also add to this connection the fact that St Simon, to whom you got by way of the reliques, was sacrificed as a child?" "Please stop I hope you not take these thoughts if I really entertained them seriously I will, however, confess to you that the lady is Italian, and that I visited Naples in her company But may not all this be coincidental?" "I must leave to your own judgment whether you can explain all these connections through the assumption of coincidence I will tell you, however, that every similar case that you analyze will lead you to just such remarkable 'coincidences!'" I have more than one reason for valuing this [p 23] little analysis, for which I am indebted to my traveling companion First, because in this case I was able to make use of a source which is otherwise inaccessible to me Most of the examples of psychic disturbances of daily life that I have here compiled I was obliged to take from observation of myself I endeavoured to evade the far richer material furnished me by my neurotic patients, because I had to preclude the objection that the phenomena in question were only the result and manifestation of the neurosis It was therefore of special value for my purpose to have a stranger free from a neurosis offer himself as a subject for such examination This analysis is also important in other respects, inasmuch as it elucidates a case of word-forgetting without substitutive recollection, and thus confirms the principle formulated above, namely, that the appearance or nonappearance of incorrect substitutive recollections does not constitute an essential distinction.[2] [p 24] But the principal value of the example aliquis lies in another of its distinctions from the case Signorelli In the latter example the reproduction of the name becomes disturbed through the after-effects of a stream of thought which began shortly before and was interrupted, but whose content had no distinct relation to the new theme which contained the name Signorelli Between the repression and the theme of the forgotten name there existed only the relation of temporal contiguity, which reached the other in order that the two should be able to form a connection [p.25] through an outer association.[3] On the other hand, in the example aliquis one can note no trace of such an independent repressed theme which could occupy conscious thought immediately before and then re-echo as a disturbance The disturbance of the reproduction proceeded here from the inner part of the theme touched upon, and was brought about by the fact that unconsciously a contradiction arose against the wish-idea represented in the quotation The origin must be construed in the following manner: The speaker deplored the fact that the present generation of his people was being deprived of its rights, and like Dido he presaged that a new generation would take upon itself vengeance against the oppressors He therefore expressed the wish for posterity In this moment he was interrupted by the contradictory thought: "Do you really wish so much for posterity? That is not true Just think in what a predicament you would be if you should now receive the information that you must expect posterity from the quarter you have in mind! No, you want no posterity as much as you need it for your venge-[p 26] ance." This contradiction asserts itself, just as in the example Signorelli, by forming an outer association between one of his ideation elements and an element of the repressed wish, but here it is brought about in a most strained manner through what seems an artificial detour of associations Another important agreement with the example Signorelli results from the fact that the contradiction originates from repressed sources and emanates from thoughts which would cause a deviation of attention 10 the father, and in this way expresses the wish for the continued existence of the father The whole number really corresponds to the fulfilment of his two wishes in reference to his family circle namely, that both the evil brother and sister should die and that another little child should follow him Or, briefly expressed: If only these two had died in place of my father![3] Another analysis of numbers I take from Jones.[4] A gentleman of his acquaintance let the number 986 come to his mind, and defied him to connect it to anything of special interest in his mind "Six years ago, on the hottest day he could remember, he had seen a joke in an evening newspaper, which stated that the [p 291] thermometer had stood at 98.6° F., evidently an exaggeration of 98.6° F.[sic] We were at the time seated in front of a very hot fire, from which he had just drawn back, and he remarked, probably quite correctly, that the heat had aroused his dormant memory However, I was curious to know why this memory had persisted with such vividness as to be so readily brought out, for with most people it surely would have been forgotten beyond recall, unless it had become associated with some other mental experience of more significance "He told me that on reading: the joke he had laughed uproariously, and that on many subsequent occasions he had recalled it with great relish As the joke was obviously of an exceedingly tenuous nature, this strengthened my expectation that more lay behind His next thought was the general reflection that the conception of heat had always greatly impressed him, that heat was the most important thing in the universe, the source of all life, and so on This remarkable attitude of a quite prosaic young man certainly needed some explanation, so I asked him to continue his free associations The next thought was of a factory stack which he could see from his bedroom window He often stood of an evening watching the flame and smoke issuing out of it, and reflecting on this deplorable waste of energy Heat, flame, the source of [p 292] life, the waste of vital energy issuing from an upright, hollow tube it was not hard to divine from such associations that the ideas of heat and fire were unconsciously linked in his mind with the idea of love, as is so frequent in symbolic thinking, and that there was a strong masturbation complex present, a conclusion that he presently confirmed." Those who wish to get a good impression of the way the material of numbers becomes elaborated in the unconscious thinking, I refer to two papers by Jung[5] and Jones.[6] In personal analysis of this kind two things were especially striking First, the absolute somnambulistic certainty with which I attacked the unknown objective point, merging into a mathematical train of thought, which later suddenly extended to the looked-for number, and the rapidity with which the entire subsequent work was performed Secondly, the fact that the numbers were always at the disposal of my unconscious mind, when as a matter of fact I am a poor mathematician and find it very difficult to consciously recall years, house numbers, and the like Moreover, in these unconscious mental operations with figures I found a tendency to [p 293] superstition, the origin of which had long remained unknown to me It will not surprise us to find that not only numbers but also mental occurrences of different kinds of words regularly prove on analytic investigation to be well determined Brill relates: "While working on the English edition of this book I was obsessed one morning with the strange word 'Cardillac.' Busily intent on my work, I refused at first to pay attention to it, but, as is usually the case, I simply could not anything else 'Cardillac' was constantly in my mind Realizing that my refusal to recognize it was only a resistance, I decided to analyse it The following associations occurred to me: Cardillac, cardiac, carrefour, Cadillac "Cardiac recalled cardalgia heartache a medical friend who had recently told me confidentially that he feared that he had some cardiac affection because he had suffered some attacks of pain in the region of his heart Knowing him so well, I at once rejected his theory, and told him that his attacks were of a neurotic character, and that his other apparent physical ailments were also only the expression of his neurosis 88 ''I might add that just before telling me of his heart trouble he spoke of a business matter of vital interest to him which had suddenly come to naught Being a man of unbounded ambitions, [p 294] he was very depressed because of late he had suffered many similar reverses His neurotic conflicts, however, had become manifest a few months before this misfortune Soon after his father's death had left a big business on his hands As the business could be continued only under my friend's management, he was unable to decide whether to enter into commercial life or continue his chosen career His great ambition was to become a successful medical practitioner, and although he had practised medicine successfully for many years, he was not altogether satisfied with the financial fluctuations of his professional income On the other hand, his father's business promised him an assured, though limited, return In brief, he was 'at a crossing and did not know which way to turn.' "I then recalled the word carrefour, which is the French for 'crossing,' and it occurred to me that while working in a hospital in Paris I lived near the 'Carrefour St Lazarre.' And now I could understand what relation all these associations had for me "When I resolved to leave the State Hospital I made the decision, first, because I desired to get married, and, secondly, because I wished to enter private practice This brought up a new problem Although my State hospital service was an absolute success, judging by promo- [p 295] tions and so on, I felt like a great many others in the same situation, namely, that my training was ill suited for private practice To specialize in mental work was a daring undertaking for one without money and social connections I also felt that the best I could for patients should they ever come my way would be to commit them to one of the hospitals, as I had little confidence in the home treatment in vogue In spite of the enormous advances made in recent years in mental work, the specialist is almost helpless when he is confronted with the average case of insanity This may be partially attributed to the fact that such cases are brought to him after they have fully developed the psychosis when hospital treatment is imperative Of the great army of milder mental disturbances, the so-called borderline cases, which make up the bulk of clinic and private work and which rightfully belong to the mental specialist, I knew very little, as those patients rarely, or never, came to the State hospital, and what I did know concerning the treatment of neurasthenia and psychasthenia was not conducive to make me more hopeful of success in private practice "It was in this state of mind that I came to Paris, where I hoped to learn enough about the psychoneuroses to enable me to continue my specialty in private practice, and yet feel that I could something for my patients What I [p 296] saw in Paris did not, however, help to change my state of mind There, too, most of the work was directed to dead tissues The mental aspects, as such, received but scant attention I was, therefore, seriously thinking of giving up my mental work for some other specialty As can be seen, I was confronted with a situation similar to the one of my medical friend I, too, was at a crossing and did not know which way to turn My suspense was soon ended One day, I received a letter from my friend Professor Peterson, who, by the way, was responsible for my entering the State hospital service In this letter he advised me not to give up my work, and suggested the psychiatric clinic of Zurich, where he thought I could find what I desired "But what does Cadillac mean? Cadillac is the name of a hotel and of an automobile A few days before in a country place my medical friend and I had been trying to hire an automobile, but there was none to be had We both expressed the wish to own an automobile again an unrealized ambition I also recalled that the 'Carrefour St Lazarre' always impressed me as being one of the busiest thoroughfares in Paris It was always congested with automobiles Cadillac also recalled that only a few days ago on the way to my clinic I noticed a large sign over a building which announced that on a certain day 'this building was to be occupied [p 297] by the Cadillac,' etc This at first made me think of the Cadillac Hotel, but on second sight I noticed that it referred to the Cadillac motorcar There was a sudden obstruction here for a few moments The word Cadillac reappeared and by sound association the word catalogue occurred to me This word brought back a very mortifying occurrence of recent origin, the motive of which is again blighted ambition "When one wishes to report any auto-analysis he must be prepared to lay bare many intimate affairs of his own life Any one reading carefully Professor Freud's works cannot fail to become intimately acquainted with him 89 and his family I have often been asked by persons who claim to have read and studied Freud's works such questions as: 'How old is Freud?' 'Is Freud married?' 'How many children has he?' etc Whenever I hear these or similar questions I know that the questioner has either lied when he made these assertions, or, to be more charitable, that he is a very careless and superficial reader All these questions and many more are answered in Freud's works Auto-analyses are autobiographies par excellence; but whereas the autobiographer may for definite reasons consciously and unconsciously hide many facts of his life, the auto-analyst not only tells the truth consciously, but perforce brings to light his whole intimate personality It is for these reasons that [p 298] one finds it very unpleasant to report his own auto-analyses However, as we often report our patients' unconscious productions, it is but fair that we should sacrifice ourselves on the altar of publicity when occasion demands This is my apology for having thrust some of my personal affairs on the reader, and for being obliged to continue a little longer in the same strain "Before digressing with the last remarks I mentioned that the word Cadillac brought the sound association catalogue This association brought back another important epoch in my life with which Professor Peterson is connected Last May I was informed by the secretary of the faculty that I was appointed chief of clinic of the department of psychiatry I need hardly say that I was exceedingly pleased to be so honoured in the first place because it was the realization of an ambition which I dared entertain only under special euphoric states; and, secondly, it was a compensation for the many unmerited criticisms from those who are blindly and unreasonably opposing some of my work Soon thereafter I called on the stenographer of the faculty and spoke to her about a correction to be made in my name as it was printed in the catalogue For some unknown reason (perhaps racial prejudice) this stenographer, a maiden lady, must have taken a dislike to me For [p 299] about three years I repeatedly requested her to have this correction made, but she had paid no attention to me To be sure she always promised to attend to it, but the mistake remained uncorrected "When I saw her last May I again reminded her of this correction, and also called her attention to the fact that as I had been appointed chief of clinic I was especially anxious to have my name correctly printed in the catalogue She apologized for her remissness and assured me that everything should be as I requested Imagine my surprise and chagrin when on receiving the new catalogue I found that while the correction had been made in my name I was not listed as chief of clinic When I asked her about this she was quite puzzled; she said she had no idea that I had been appointed chief of clinic She had to consult the minutes of the faculty, written by herself, before she was convinced of it It should be noted that as recorder to the faculty it was her duty to know all these things as soon as they transpired.[7] When she finally ascertained that I was right she was very apologetic and informed me that she would at once write to the superintendent of the clinic to inform him of my appointment, [p 300] something which she should have done months before Of course I gained nothing by her regrets and apologies The catalogue was published and those who read it did not find my name in the desired place I am chief of clinic in fact but not in name Moreover, as the appointments are made only for one year, it is quite likely that my great ambition will never be actually realized "Thus the obsessive neologism cardillac, which is a condensation of cardiac, Cadillac, and catalogue, contains some of the most important efforts of my medical experience When I was almost at the end of this analysis I suddenly recalled a dream containing this neologism cardillac in which my wish was realized My name appeared in its rightful place in the catalogue The person who showed it to me in the dream was Professor Peterson It was when I was at the first 'crossing' after I had graduated from the medical college that Professor Peterson urged me to enter the hospital service About five years later while I was in the state of indecision which I have described, it was Professor Peterson who advised me to go to the clinic of psychiatry at Zurich where through Bleuler and Jung I first became acquainted with Professor Freud and his works, and it was also through the kind recommendation of Dr Peterson that I was elevated to my present position." [p 301] I am indebted to Dr Hitschman for the solution of another case in which a line of poetry repeatedly obtruded itself on the mind in a certain place without showing any trace of its origin and relation 90 Related by Dr E.: "Six years ago I travelled from Biarritz to San Sebastian The railroad crosses over the Bidassao a river which here forms the boundary between France and Spain On the bridge one has a splendid view, on the one side of the broad valley and the Pyrenees and on the other of the sea It was a beautiful, bright summer day; everything was filled with sun and light I was on a vacation and pleased with my trip to Spain Suddenly the following words came to me: 'But the soul is already free, floating on a sea of light.' "At that time I was trying to remember where these lines came from, but I could not remember; judging by the rhythm, the words must be a part of some poem, which, however, entirely escaped my memory Later when the verse repeatedly came to my mind, I asked many people about it without receiving any information "Last year I crossed the same bridge on my return journey from Spain It was a very dark night and it rained I looked through the window to ascertain whether we had already reached the frontier station and noticed that we were on the Bidassao bridge Immediately the above- [p 302] cited verse returned to my memory and again I could not recall its origin "At home many months later I found Uhland's poems I opened the volume and my glance fell upon the verse: 'But the soul is already free, floating on a sea of light,' which were the concluding lines of the poem entitled 'The Pilgrim.' I read the poem and dimly recalled that I had known it many years ago The scene of action is in Spain, and this seemed to me to be the only relation between the quoted verse and the place on the railroad journey described by me I was only half satisfied with my discovery and mechanically continued to turn the pages of the book On turning the next page I found a poem the title of which was 'Bidassao Bridge.' "I may add that the contents of this poem seemed even stranger to me than that of the first, and that its first verse read: "'On the Bidassao bridge stands a saint grey with age, he blesses to the right the Spanish mountain, to the left he blesses the French land.'" II This understanding of the determination of apparently arbitrarily selected names, numbers, and words may perhaps contribute to the solution of another problem As is known, many persons argue against the assumption of an absolute psychic determinism by referring to an intense [p 303] feeling of conviction that there is a free will This feeling of conviction exists, but is not incompatible with the belief in determinism Like all normal feelings, it must be justified by something But, so far as I can observe, it does not manifest itself in weighty and important decisions; on these occasions one has much more the feeling of a psychic compulsion and gladly falls back upon it (Compare Luther's "Here I stand, I cannot anything else.") On the other hand, it is in trivial and indifferent decisions that one feels sure that he could just as easily have acted differently, that he acted of his own free will, and without any motives From our analyses we therefore need not contest the right of the feeling of conviction that there is a free will If we distinguish conscious from unconscious motivation we are then informed by the feeling of conviction that the conscious motivation does not extend over all our motor resolutions Minima non curat prætor What is thus left free from the one side receives its motive from the other side, from the unconscious, and the determinism in the psychic realm is thus carried out uninterruptedly.[8] [p.304] III Although conscious thought must be altogether ignorant of the motivation of the faulty actions described above, yet it would be desirable to discover a psychologic proof of its existence; indeed, reasons obtained through a deeper knowledge of the unconscious make it probable that such proofs are to be discovered somewhere As a matter of fact phenomena can be demonstrated in two spheres which seem to correspond to an unconscious and hence to a displaced knowledge of these motives (a) It is a striking and generally to be recognized feature in the behaviour of paranoiacs, that they attach the greatest significance to the trivial details in the behaviour of others Details which are usually overlooked by 91 others they interpret and utilize as the basis of far-reaching conclusions For example, the last paranoiac seen by me concluded that there was a general understanding among people of his environment, because at his departure from the railway-station [p 305] they made a certain motion with one hand Another noticed how people walked on the street, how they brandished their walking-sticks, and the like.[9] The category of the accidental, requiring no motivation, which the normal person lets pass as a part of his own psychic activities and faulty actions, is thus rejected by the paranoiac in the application to the psychic manifestations to others All that he observes in others is full of meaning, all is explainable But how does he come to look at it in this manner? Probably here as in so many other cases, he projects into the mental life of others what exists in his own unconscious activity Many things obtrude themselves on consciousness in paranoia which in normal and neurotic persons can only be demonstrated through psychoanalysis as existing in their unconscious.[10] In a certain sense the paranoiac is here justified, he perceives something that escapes the normal person, he sees clearer than one of normal intellectual capacity, [p 306] but his knowledge becomes worthless when he imputes to others the state of affairs he thus recognizes I hope that I shall not be expected to justify every paranoic interpretation But the point which we grant to paranoia in this conception of chance actions will facilitate for us the psychologic understanding of the conviction which the paranoiac attaches to all these interpretations There is certainly same truth to it; even our errors of judgment, which are not designated as morbid, acquire their feeling of conviction in the same way This feeling is justified for a certain part of the erroneous train of thought or for the source of its origin, and we shall later extend to it the remaining relationships (b) The phenomena of superstition furnish another indication of the unconscious motivation in chance and faulty actions I will make myself clear through the discussion of a simple experience which gave me the starting-point to these reflections Having returned from vacation, my thoughts immediately turned to the patients with whom I was to occupy myself in the beginning of my year's work My first visit was to a very old woman (see above) for whom I had twice daily performed the same professional services for many years Owing to this monotony unconscious thoughts have often found expression on [p 307] the way to the patient and during my occupation with her She was over ninety years old; it was therefore pertinent to ask oneself at the beginning of each year how much longer she was likely to live On the day of which I speak I was hurry and took a carriage to her house Every coachman at the cabstand near my house knew the old woman's address, as each of them had often driven me there This day it happened that the driver did not stop in front of her house, but before one of the same number in a near-by and really similarlooking parallel street I noticed the mistake and reproached the coachman, who apologized for it Is it of any significance when I am taken to a house where the old woman is not to be found? Certainly not to me; but were I superstitious, I should see an omen in this incident, a hint of fate that this would be the last year for the old woman A great many omens which have been preserved by history have been founded on no better symbolism Of course, I explain the incident as an accident without further meaning The case would have been entirely different had I come on foot and, "absorbed in thought " or "through distraction," I had gone to the house in the parallel street instead of the correct one I would not explain that as an accident, but as an action with unconscious intent requiring inter- [p 308] pretation My explanation of this "lapse in walking" would probably be that I expected that the time would soon come when I should not meet the old woman any longer I therefore differ from a superstitious person in the following manner: I not believe that an occurrence in which my mental life takes no part can teach me anything hidden concerning the future shaping of reality; but I believe that an unintentional manifestation of my own mental activity surely contains something concealed which belongs only to my mental life that is, I believe in outer (real) chance, but not in inner (psychic) accidents With the superstitious person the case is reversed: he knows 92 nothing of the motive of his chance and faulty actions; he believes in the existence of psychic contingencies; he is therefore inclined to attribute meaning to external chance, which manifests itself in actual occurrence, and to see in the accident a means of expression for something hidden outside of him There are two differences between me and the superstitious person: first, he projects the motive to the to the outside, while I look for it in myself; second, he explains the accident by an event which I trace to a thought What he considers hidden corresponds to the unconscious with me, and the compulsion not to let chance pass as chance, but to explain it as common to both of us [p 309] Thus I admit that this conscious ignorance and unconscious knowledge of the motivation of psychic accidentalness is one of the psychic roots of superstition Because the superstitious person knows nothing of the motivation of his own accidental actions, and because the fact of this motivation strives for a place in his recognition, he is compelled to dispose of them by displacing them into the outer world If such a connection exists it can hardly be limited to this single case As a matter of fact, I believe that a large portion of the mythological conception of the world which reaches far into the most modern religions is nothing but psychology projected into the outer world The dim perception (the endo-psychic perception, as it were) of psychic factors and relations[11] of the unconscious was taken as a model in the construction of a transcendental reality, which is destined to be changed again by science into psychology of the unconscious It is difficult to express it in other terms; the analogy to paranoia must here come to our aid We venture to explain in this way the myths of paradise and the fall of man, of God, of good and evil, of immortality, and the like that is, to transform metaphysics into meta-psychology The gap between the paranoiac's displacement [p 310] and that of superstition is narrower than appears at first sight When human beings began to think, they were obviously compelled to explain the outer world in an anthropomorphic sense by a multitude of personalities in their own image; the accidents which they explained superstitiously were thus actions and expressions of persons In that regard they behaved just like paranoiacs, who draw conclusions from insignificant signs which others give them, and like all normal persons who justly take the unintentional actions of their fellow-beings as a basis for 'the estimation of their characters Only in our modern philosophical, but by no means finished, views of life does superstition seem so much out of place: in the view of life of prescientific times and nations it was justified and consistent The Roman who gave up an important undertaking because he sighted an ill-omened flock of birds was relatively right; his action was consistent with his principles But if he withdrew from an undertaking because he had stumbled on his threshold (un Romain retournerait), he was absolutely superior even to us unbelievers He was a better psychologist than we are striving to become For his stumbling could demonstrate to him the existence of a doubt, an internal counter-current the force of which could weaken the power of his [p 311] intention at the moment of its execution For only by concentrating all psychic forces on the desired aim can one be assured of perfect success How does Schiller's Tell, who hesitated so long to shoot the apple from his son's head, answer the bailiff's question why he had provided himself with a second arrow! "With the second arrow I would have pierced you had I struck my dear child and; truly, I should not have failed to reach you." IV Whoever has had the opportunity of studying the concealed psychic feelings of persons by means of psychoanalysis can also tell something new concerning the quality of unconscious motives, which express themselves in superstition Nervous persons afflicted with compulsive thinking and compulsive states, who are often very intelligent, show very plainly that superstition originates from repressed hostile and cruel impulses The greater part of superstition signifies fear of impending evil, and he who has frequently wished evil to others, but because of a good bringing-up has repressed the same into the unconscious, will be particularly apt to expect punishment for such unconscious evil in the form of a misfortune threatening him: from without If we concede that we have by no means exhausted the psychology of superstition in these remarks, we must, on the other hand, at least [p 312] touch upon the question whether real roots of superstition should be altogether denied, whether there are really no omens, prophetic dreams, telepathic experiences, manifestations of supernatural forces, and the like I am now far from willing to repudiate without anything further all these 93 phenomena, concerning which we possess so many minute observations even from men of intellectual prominence, and which should certainly form a basis for further investigation We map even hope that some of these observations will be explained by our present knowledge of the unconscious psychic processes without necessitating radical changes in our present aspect If still other phenomena, as, for example, those maintained by the spiritualists, should be proven, we should then consider the modification of our "laws" as demanded by the new experience, without becoming confused in regard to the relation of things of this world In the sphere of these analyses I can only answer the questions here proposed subjectively that is, in accordance with my personal experience I am sorry to confess chat I belong to that class of unworthy individuals before whom the spirits cease their activities and the supernatural disappears, so that I have never been in position to experience anything personally that would stimulate belief in the miraculous Like everybody else, I have had forebodings and ex- [p 313] perienced misfortunes; but the two evaded each other, so that nothing followed the foreboding, and the misfortune struck me unannounced When as a young man I lived alone in a strange city I frequently heard my name suddenly pronounced by an unmistakable, dear voice, and I then made a note of the exact moment of the hallucination in order to inquire carefully of those at home what had occurred at that time There was nothing to it On the other hand, I later worked among my patients calmly and without foreboding while my child almost bled to death Nor have I ever been able to recognize as unreal phenomena any of the forebodings reported to me by my patients The belief in prophetic dreams numbers many adherents, because it can be supported by the fact that some things really so happen in the future as they were previously foretold by the wish of the dream But in this there is little to be wondered at, as many far-reaching deviations may be regularly demonstrated between a dream and the fulfilment which the credulity of the dreamer prefers to neglect A nice example, one which may be justly called prophetic was once brought to me for exhaustive analysts by an intelligent and truth-loving patient She related that she once dreamed that she had met a former friend and family physician in front of a certain store in [p 314] a certain street, and next morning when she went down town she actually met him at the place named in the dream I may observe that the significance of this wonderful coincidence was not proven to be due to any subsequent event that is, it could not be justified through future occurrences Careful examination definitely established the fact that there was no proof that the woman recalled the dream in the morning following the night of the dream that is, before the walk and before the meeting She could offer no objection when this state of affairs was presented in a manner that robbed this episode of everything miraculous, leaving only an interesting psychologic problem One morning she had walked through this very street, had met her old family physician before that certain store, and on seeing him received the conviction that during the preceding night she had dreamed of this meeting at this place The analysis then showed with great probability how she came to this conviction, to which, in accordance with the general rule, we cannot deny a certain right to credence A meeting at a definite place following a previous expectation really describes the fact of a rendezvous The old family physician awakened her memory of old times, when meetings with a third person, also a friend of the physician, were of marked [p 315] significance to her Since that time she had continued her relations with this gentleman, and the day before the mentioned dream she had waited for him in vain If I could report in greater detail the circumstances here before us, I could easily show that the illusion of the prophetic dream at the sight of the friend of former times is perchance equivalent to the following speech: "Ah, doctor, you now remind me of bygone times, when I never had to wait in vain for N when we had arranged a meeting." I have observed in myself a simple and easily explained example, which is probably a good model for similar occurrences of those familiar "remarkable coincidences" wherein we meet a person of whom we were just thinking During a walk through the inner city a few days after the title of "Professor" was bestowed on me, which carries with it a great deal of prestige even in monarchical cities, my thoughts suddenly merged into a 94 childish revenge-fantasy against a certain married couple Some months previous they had called me to see their little daughter who suffered from' an interesting compulsive manifestation following the appearance of a dream I took a great interest in the case, the genesis of which I believed I could surmise, but the parents were unfavourable to my treatment, and gave me to understand that they thought of applying to a foreign authority who cured by [p 316] means of hypnotism I now fancied that after the failure of this attempt, the parents begged me to resume my treatment, that they now had full confidence in me, etc But I answered: "Now that I have become a professor, you have confidence in me The title has made no change in my ability; if you could not use me when I was instructor you can get along without me now that I am! a professor." At this point my fantasy was interrupted by a loud "Good evening, Professor!" and as I looked up there passed me the same couple on whom I had just taken this imaginary vengeance The next reflection destroyed the semblance of the miraculous I was walking towards this couple on a straight, almost deserted street; glancing up hastily at a distance of perhaps twenty steps from me, I had spied and realized their stately personalities; but this perception, following the model of a negative hallucination, was set aside by certain emotionally accentuated motives and then asserted itself in the apparently spontaneous emerging fantasy A similar experience is related by Brill, which also throws some light on the nature of telepathy "While engrossed in conversation during our customary Sunday evening dinner at one of the large New York restaurants, I suddenly stopped and irrelevantly remarked to my wife, 'I wonder [p 317] how Dr R is doing in Pittsburg.' She looked at me much astonished and said: 'Why, that is exactly what I have been thinking for the last few seconds! Either you have transferred this thought to me or I have transferred it to you How can you otherwise explain this strange phenomenon?' I had to admit that I could offer no solution Our conversation throughout the dinner showed not the remotest association to Dr R., nor, so far as our memories went, had we heard or spoken of him for some time Being a sceptic, I refused to admit that there was anything mysterious about it, although inwardly I felt quite uncertain To be frank, I was somewhat mystified "But we did not remain very long in this state of mind, for on looking toward the cloak-room we were surprised to see Dr R Though closer inspection showed our mistake, we were both struck by the remarkable resemblance of this stranger to Dr R From the position of the cloak-room we were forced to conclude that this stranger had passed our table Absorbed in our conversation, we had not noticed him consciously, but the visual image had stirred up the association of his double, Dr R That we should both have experienced the same thought is also quite natural The last word from our friend was to the effect that he had taken up private practice in Pittsburg, and, being aware of the vicissi- [p 318] tudes that beset the beginner, it was quite natural to wonder how fortune smiled upon him "What promised to be a supernatural manifestation was thus easily explained on a normal basis; but had we not noticed the stranger before he left the restaurant, it would have been impossible to exclude the mysterious I venture to say that such simple mechanisms are at the bottom of the most complicated telepathic manifestations; at least, such has been my experience in all cases accessible to investigation." Another "solution of an apparent foreboding " was reported by Otto Rank[12]:-"Some time ago I had experienced a remarkable variation of that peculiar coincidence wherein one meets a person who has just been occupying one's thoughts Shortly before Christmas I went to the Austro-Hungarian Bank in order to obtain ten new silver crown-pieces destined for Christmas gifts Absorbed in ambitious fantasies which dealt with the contrast of my meagre means to the enormous sums in the banking-house, I turned into the narrow street to the bank In front of the door I saw an automobile and many people going in and out I thought to myself: 'The officials will have plenty of time for my new crowns; naturally I shall be quick about it; I shall put down the paper notes to be exchanged, and say, "Please [p 319] give me gold."' I realized my mistake at once I was to have asked for silver and awoke from my fantasies 95 "I was now only a few steps front the entrance, and noticed a young man coming toward me who looked familiar, but whom I could not definitely identify on account of my short-sightedness As he came nearer I recognized him as a classmate of my brother whose name was Gold and from whose brother, a well-known journalist, I had great expectations in the beginning of my literary career But these expectations had not materialized, and with them had vanished the hoped-for material success with which my fantasies were occupying; themselves on my way to the bank Thus engrossed I must have unconsciously perceived the approach of Mr Gold, who impressed himself on my conscience while I was dreaming of material success, and thereby caused me to ask the cashier for gold instead of the inferior silver But, on the other hand, the paradoxical fact that my unconscious was able to perceive an object long before it was recognized by the eye might in part be explained by the complex readiness (Komplexbereitschaft) of Bleuler For my mind was attuned to the material, and, contrary to my better knowledge, it guided my steps from the very beginning to buildings where gold and paper money were exchanged." [p 320] To the category of the wonderful and uncanny we may also add that strange feeling we perceive in certain moments and situations when it seems as if we had already had exactly the same experience, or had previously found ourselves in the same situation Yet we are never successful in our efforts to recall clearly; those former experiences and situations I know that I follow only the loose colloquial expression when I designate that which stimulates us in such moments as a "feeling." We undoubtedly deal with a judgment, and, indeed, with a judgment of cognition; but these cases, nevertheless, have a character peculiar to themselves, and besides, we must not ignore the fact that we never recall what we are seeking I not know whether this phenomenon of Déjà vu was ever seriously offered as a proof of a former psychic existence of the individual; but it is certain that psychologists have taken an interest in it, and have attempted to solve the riddle in a multitude of speculative ways None of the proposed tentative explanations seems right to me, because none takes account of anything but the accompanying manifestations and the favouring conditions of the phenomenon Those psychic processes which, according to my observation, are alone responsible for the explanation of the Déjà vu namely, the unconscious fantasies are generally neglected by the psychologists even to-day [p 321] I believe that it is wrong to designate the feeling of having experienced something before as an illusion On the contrary, in such moments something is really touched that we have already experienced, only we cannot consciously recall the latter because it never was conscious In short, the feeling Déjà vu corresponds to the memory of an unconscious fantasy There are unconscious fantasies (or day dreams) just as there are similar conscious creations, which everyone knows from personal experience I realize that the object is worthy of most minute study, but I will here give the analysis of only one case of Déjà vu in which the feeling was characterized by particular intensity and persistence A woman of thirty-seven years asserted that she most distinctly remembered that at the age of twelve and a half she paid her first visit to some school friends in the country, and as she entered the garden she immediately had the feeling of having been there before This feeling was repeated as she went through the living-rooms, so that she believed she knew beforehand how big the next room was, what views one could have on looking out of it, etc But the belief that this feeling of recognition might have its source in a previous visit to the house and garden, perhaps a visit paid in earliest childhood, was absolutely excluded and disproved [p 322] by statements from her parents The woman who related this sought no psychologic explanation, but saw in the appearance of this feeling a prophetic reference to the importance which these friends later assumed in her emotional life On taking into consideration, however, the circumstance under which this phenomenon presented itself to her, we found the way to another conception When she decided upon this visit she knew that these girls had an only brother, who was seriously ill In the course of the visit she actually saw him She found him looking very badly, and thought to herself that he would soon die But it happened that her own only brother had had a serious attack of diphtheria some months before, and during his illness she had lived for weeks with relatives far from her parental home She believed that her 96 brother was taking part in this visit to the country, imagined even that this was his first long journey since his illness; still, her memory was remarkably indistinct in regard to these points, whereas all other details, and particularly the dress which she wore that day, remained most clearly before her eyes To the initiated it will not be difficult to conclude from these suggestions that the expectation of her brother's death had played a great part in the girl's mind at that time, and that either it never [p 323] became conscious or it was more energetically repressed after the favourable issue of' the illness Under other circumstances she would have been compelled to wear another dress namely, mourning clothes She found the analogous situation in her friends' home; their only: brother was in danger of an early death, an event that really came to pass a short time after She might have consciously remembered that she lived through a similar situation a few months previous, but instead of recalling what was inhibited through repression she transferred the memory feeling to the locality, to the garden and the house, and merged it into the fausse reconnaissance that she had already seen everything exactly as it was From the fact of the repression we may conclude that the former expectation of the death of her brother was not far from evincing the character of a wish-fantasy She would then have become the only: child In her later neurosis she suffered in the most intense manner from the fear of losing her parents, behind which the analysis disclosed, as usual, the unconscious wish of the same content My own experience of Déjà vu I can trace in a similar manner to the emotional constellation of the moment It may he expressed as follows: "That would be another occasion for awakening certain fantasies (unconscious and unknown) [p 324] which were formed in me at one time or another as a wish to improve my situation."[13] V Recently when I had occasion to recite to a colleague of a philosophical turn of mind some examples of name-forgetting, with their analyses, he hastened to reply: "That is all very well, but with me the forgetting of a name proceeds in a different manner." Evidently one cannot dismiss this question as simply as that; I not believe that my colleague had ever thought of an analysis for the forgetting of a name, nor could he say how the process differed in him But his remark, nevertheless, touches upon a problem which many would be inclined to place in the foreground Does the solution given for faulty and chance actions apply in general or only in particular cases, and if only in the latter, what are the conditions under which it may also be employed in the explanation of the other phenomena? [p 325] In answer to this question my experiences leave me in the lurch I can only urge against considering the demonstrated connections as rare, for as often as I have made the test in myself and with my patients it was always definitely demonstrated exactly as in the examples reported, or there were at least good reasons to assume this One should not be surprise, however, when one does not succeed every time in finding the concealed meaning of he symptomatic action, as the amount of inner resistances ranging themselves against the solution must be considered a deciding factor Also, it is not always possible to explain every individual dream of one's self of patients To substantiate the general validity of the theory, it is enough if one can penetrate only a certain distance into the hidden associations The dream which proves refractory when the solution is attempted on the following day can often be robbed of its secret a week or a month later, when the psychic factors combating one another have been reduced as a consequence of a real change that has meanwhile taken place The same applies to the solution of faulty and symptomatic actions It would therefore be wrong to affirm of all cases which resist analysis that they are caused by another psychic mechanism than that here revealed; such assumption requires more than negative proofs; moreover, the readiness to [p 326] believe in a difference explanation of faulty and symptomatic actions, which probably exists universally in all normal persons, does not prove anything; it is obviously an expression of the same psychic forces which produced the secret, which therefore strives to protect and struggle against its elucidation On the other hand, we must not overlook the fact that the repressed thoughts and feelings are not independent in attaining expression in symptomatic and faulty actions The technical possibility for such an adjustment of the innervations must be furnished independently of them, and this is then gladly utilized by the intention of the 97 repressed material to come to conscious expression In the case of linguistic faulty actions an attempt has been made by philosophers and philologists to verify through minute observations what structural and functional relations enter into the service of such intention If in the determinations of faulty and symptomatic actions we separate the unconscious motive from its co-active physiological and psychophysical relations, the question remains open whether there are still other factors within normal limits which, like the unconscious motive, and in its place can produce faulty and symptomatic actions on the road of the relations It is not my; task to answer this question VI Since the discussion of speech blunders [p 327] we have been content to demonstrate that faulty actions have a concealed motive, and through the aid of psychoanalysis we have traced our way to the knowledge of their motivation The general nature and the peculiarities of the psychic factors brought to expression in these faulty actions we have hitherto left almost without consideration; at any rate, we have not attempted to define them more accurately or to examine into their lawfulness Nor will we now attempt a thorough elucidation of the subject, as the first steps have already taught us that it is more feasible to enter this structure from another side Here we can put before ourselves certain questions which I will cite in their order (1) What is the content and the origin of the thoughts and feelings ;which show; themselves through faulty and chance actions? (2) What are the conditions which force a thought or a feeling to make use of these occurrences as a means of expression and place it in a position to sol (3) Can constant and definite associations be demonstrated between the manner of the faulty action and the qualities brought to expression through it I shall begin by bringing together some material for answering the last question In the discussion of the examples of speech blunders we found it necessary to go beyond the contents of the intended speech, and we had to seek the [p 328] cause of the speech disturbance outside the intention The latter was quite clear in a series of cases, and as known to the consciousness of the speaker In the example that seemed most simple and transparent it was a similar sounding but different conception of the same thought, which disturbed its expression without any one being able to say why the one succumbed and the other came to the surface (Meringer and Mayers' Contaminations) In a second group of cases one conception succumbed to a motive which did not, however, prove strong enough to cause complete submersion The conception which was withheld was clearly presented to consciousness Only of the third group can we affirm unreservedly that the disturbing thought differed from the one intended, and it is obvious that it may establish an essential distinction The disturbing thought is either connected with the disturbed on through a thought association (disturbance through inner contradiction), or it is substantially strange to it, and just the disturbed word is connected with the disturbing thought through a surprising outer association, which is frequently unconscious In the examples which I have given from my psychoanalyses it is found that the entire speech is either under the influence of thoughts which have become active simultaneously, or under [p 329] absolutely unconscious thoughts which betray themselves either through the disturbance itself, or which evince an indirect influence by making it possible for the individual parts of the unconsciously intended speech to disturb one another The retained unconscious thoughts from which the disturbances in speech emanate are of most varied origin A general survey does not reveal any definite direction Comparative examinations of examples of mistakes in reading and writing lead me to the same conclusions Isolated cases, as in speech blunders, seem to owe their origin to an unmotivated work of condensation (e.g., the Apel) But we should be pleased to know whether special conditions must not be fulfilled in order that such condensation, which is considered regular in the dream-work and faulty in our waking thoughts, should take place No information concerning this can be obtained from the examples themselves But I merely refuse from this to draw the conclusion that there are no such conditions, as, for instance, the relaxation of conscious attention; for I have learned elsewhere that automatic actions are especially characterized by correctness and reliability I would rather emphasize the fact that here, as so frequently in biology, it is the normal relations, or 98 those approaching the normal, that are less favourable objects for investigation than the [p 330] pathological What remains obscure in the explanation of these most simple disturbances will, according to my expectation, be made clear through the explanation of more serious disturbances Also mistakes in reading and writing not lack examples in which more remote and more complicated motivation can be recognized There is no doubt that the disturbances of the speech functions occur more easily and make less demand on the disturbing forces than other psychic acts But one is on different ground when it comes to the examination of forgetting in the literal sense i.e., the forgetting of past experiences (To distinguish this forgetting from the others we designate sensu strictiori the forgetting of proper names and foreign words, as in Chapters I and II, as "slips"; and the forgetting of resolutions as "omissions.") The principal conditions of the normal process in forgetting are unknown.[14] We are also reminded of the fact [p 331] that not all is forgotten which we believe to be Our explanation here deals only with those cases in which the forgetting arouses our astonishment, in so far as it infringes the rule that the unimportant is forgotten, while the important matter is guarded by memory Analysis of these examples of forgetting - is always an unwillingness to recall something which may evoke painful feelings We may come to the conjecture that this motive universally strives for expression in psychic life, but is inhibited through other [p 332] and contrary forces from regularly manifesting itself The extent and significance of this dislike to recall painful impressions seems worthy of the most painstaking psychologic investigation The question as to what special conditions render possible the universally resistant forgetting in individual cases cannot be solved through this added association A different factor steps into the foreground in the forgetting of resolutions; the supposed conflict resulting in the repression of the painful memory becomes tangible, and in the analysis of the examples one regularly recognizes a counter-will which opposes but does not put an end to the resolution As in previously discussed faulty act, we here also recognize two types of the psychic process: the counter-will either turns directly against the resolution (in intentions of some consequence) or it is substantially foreign to the resolution itself and establishes its connection with it through an outer association (in almost indifferent resolutions) The same conflict governs the phenomena of erroneously carried-out actions The impulse which manifests itself in the disturbances of the action is frequently a counter-impulse Still oftener it is altogether a strange impulse which only utilizes the opportunity to express itself through a disturbance in the execution of the action The cases in which the disturbance is [p 333] the result of an inner contradiction are the most significant ones, and also deal with the more important activities The inner conflict in the chance or symptomatic actions then merges into the background Those motor expressions which are least thought of, or are entirely overlooked by consciousness, serve as the expression of numerous unconscious or restrained feelings For the most part they represent symbolically wishes and phantoms The first question (as to the origin of the thoughts and emotions which find expression in faulty actions) we can answer by saying that in a series of cases the origin of the disturbing thoughts can be readily traced to repressed emotions of the psychic life Even in healthy persons egotistic, jealous and hostile feelings and impulses, burdened by the pressure of moral education, often utilize the path of faulty actions to express in some way their undeniably existing force which is not recognized by the higher psychic instances Allowing these faulty and chance actions to continue corresponds in great part to a comfortable toleration of the unmoral The manifold sexual currents play no insignificant part m these repressed feelings That they appear so seldom in the thoughts revealed by the analyses of my examples is simply a matter of coincidence As I have undertaken the analyses of numerous examples from my own [p 334] psychic life, the selection was partial from the first, and aimed at the exclusion of sexual matters At other times it seemed that the disturbing thoughts originated from the most harmless objection and consideration 99 We have now reached the answer to the second question that is, what psychologic conditions are responsible for the fact that a thought must seek expression not in its complete form but, as it were, in parasitic form, as a modification and disturbance of another From the most striking examples of faulty actions it is quite obvious that this determinant should be sought in a relation to conscious capacity, or in the more or less firmly pronounced character of the "repressed" material But an examination of this series of examples shows that this character consists of many indistinct elements The tendency to overlook something because it is wearisome, or because the concerned thought does not really belong to the intended matter these feelings seem to play the same rôle as motives for the suppression of a thought (which later depends for expression on the disturbance of another), as the moral condemnation of a rebellious emotional feeling, or as the origin of absolutely unconscious trains of thought An insight into the general nature of the condition of faulty and chance actions cannot be gained in this way [p 335] However, this investigation gives us one single significant fact; the more harmless the motivation of the faulty act the less obnoxious, and hence less incapable of consciousness, the thought to which it gives expression is; the easier also becomes the solution of the phenomenon after we have turned our attention toward it The simplest cases of speech blunders are immediately noticed and instantaneously corrected Where one deals with motivation through actually repressed feelings the solution requires a painstaking analysis, which may sometimes strike against difficulties or turn out unsuccessful One is therefore justified in taking the result of this last investigation as an indication of the fact that the satisfactory explanation of the psychologic determinations of faulty and chance actions is to be acquired in another way and from another source The indulgent reader can therefore see in these discussions the demonstration of the surfaces of fracture in which this theme was quite artificially evolved from a broader connection VII Just a few words to indicate the direction of this broader connection The mechanism of the faulty and chance actions, as we have learned to know it through the application of analysis, shows in the most essential points an agreement with the mechanism of dream formation, which I have discussed in the chapter "The Dream [p 336] Work" of my book on the interpretation of dreams Here, as there, one finds the condensation and compromise formation ("contaminations"); in addition the situation is much the same, since unconscious thoughts find expression as modifications of other thoughts in unusual ways and through outer associations The incongruities, absurdities, and errors in the dream content by virtue of which the dream is scarcely recognized as a psychic achievement originate in the same way to be sure, through freer usage of the existing material -as the common error of our everyday life; here, as there, the appearance of the incorrect function is explained through the peculiar interference of two or more correct actions An important conclusion call be drawn from this combination: the peculiar mode of operation, whose most striking function we recognize in the dream content, should not be adjudged only to the sleeping state of the psychic life when we possess abundant proof of its activity during the waking state in the form of faulty actions The same connection also forbids us assuming that these psychic processes which impress us as abnormal and strange are determined by deep-seated decay of psychic activity or by morbid state of function.[15] The correct understanding of this strange psychic work which allows the faulty actions to originate like the dream pictures will only be possible after we have discovered that the psychoneurotic symptoms, particularly the psychic formations of hysteria and compulsion neurosis, repeat in their mechanisms all the essential features of this mode of operation The continuation of our investigation would therefore have to begin at this point There is still another special interest for us in considering the faulty, chance, and symptomatic actions in the light of this last analogy If we compare them to the function of the psychoneuroses and the neurotic symptoms, two frequently recurring statements gain in sense and support namely, that the border-line between the nervous, normal, and abnormal states is indistinct, and that we are all slightly nervous Regardless of all medical experience, one may construe various types of such barely suggested nervousness, the formes frustes of the 100 neuroses There may, ;be cases in which only a few symptoms appear, or they may manifest themselves rarely or in mild forms; the extenuation may be transferred to the number; intensity, or to the temporal outbreak of the morbid manifestation It may also happen that just this type, which forms the most frequent transition between health and disease, may never be discovered [p 338] The transition type, whose morbid manifestations come in the form of faulty and symptomatic actions, is characterized by the fact that the symptoms are transformed to the least important psychic activities, while everything that can lay claim to a higher psychic value remains free from disturbance When the symptoms are disposed of in a reverse manner that is, when they appear in the most important individual and social activities in a manner to disturb the functions of nourishment and sexual relations, professional and social life such disposition is found in the severe cases of neuroses, and is perhaps more characteristic of the latter than the multiformity or vividness of the morbid manifestations But the common character of the mildest as well as the severest cases, to which the faulty and chance actions contribute, lies in the ability to refer the phenomena to unwelcome, repressed, psychic material, which, though pushed away from consciousness, is nevertheless not robbed of all capacity to express itself Footnotes [1] Alfred Adler, "Drei Psychoanalysen von Zahlen einfällen und obsedierenden Zahlen," Psych Neur Wochenschr., No 28, 1905· [2] As an explanation of Macbeth, No 17 of the U L., I was informed by Dr Adler that in his seventeenth year this man had joined an anarchistic society whose aim was regicide Probably this is why he forgot the content of the play Macbeth The same person invented at that time a secret code in which numbers substituted letters [3] For the sake of simplicity I have omitted some of the not less suitable thoughts of the patients [4] Loc cit., p 36 [5] "Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Zahlentraumes," Zentralb f Psychoanalyse, i 12 [6] "Unconscious Manipulation of Numbers" (ibid., ii 5, 1912) [7] This is another excellent example showing how a conscious intention was powerless to counteract an unconscious resistance [8] These conceptions of strict determinism in seemingly arbitrary actions have already borne rich fruit for psychology perhaps also for the administration of justice Bleuler and Jung have in this way made intelligible the reaction in the so-called association experiments, wherein the test person answers to a given word with one occurring to him (stimulus-word reaction), while the time elapsing between the stimulus word and answer is measured (reaction-time) Jung has shown in his Diagnostische Assoziationsstudien, 1906, what fine reagents for psychic occurrences we possess in this association-experiment Three students of criminology, H Gross, of Prague, and Wertheimer and Kiein, have developed from these experiments a technique for the diagnosis of facts (Tatbestands-Diagnostik) in criminal cases, the examination of which is now tested by psychologists and jurists [9] Proceeding from other points of view, this interpretation of the trivial and accidental by the patient has been designated as "delusions of reference." [10] For example, the fantasies of the hysterical regarding sexual and cruel abuse which are made conscious by analysis often correspond in every detail with the complaints of persecuted paranoiacs It is remarkable but not 101 altogether unexpected that we also meet the identical content as reality in the contrivances of perverts for the gratification of their desires [11] Which naturally has nothing of the character of perception [12] Zenltralb f Psychoanalyse, ii [13] Thus far this explanation of Déjà vu has been appreciated by only one observer Dr Ferenczi, to whom the third edition of this is book is indebted for so many contributions, writes to me concerning this:"I have been convinced, through myself as well as others, that the inexplicable feeling of familiarity can be referred to unconscious fantasies of which we are unconsciously reminded in an actual situation With one of my patients the process was apparently different but in reality it was quite analogous This feeling returned to him very often, but showed itself regularly as originating in a forgotten (repressed) portion of a dream of the preceding night Thus it appears that the Déjà vu can originate not only from day dreams but also from night dreams." [14] I can perhaps give the following outline concerning the mechanism of actual forgetting The memory material succumbs in general to two influences, condensation and disfigurement Disfigurement is the work of the tendencies dominating the psychic life, and directs itself above all against the affective remnants of memory traces which maintain a more resistive attitude towards condensation The traces which have grown indifferent merge into a process of condensation without opposition; in addition it may be observed that tendencies of disfigurement also feed on the indifferent material, because they have not been gratified where they wished to manifest themselves As these processes of condensation and disfigurement continue for long periods during which all fresh experiences act upon the transformation of the memory content, it is our belief that it is time that makes memory uncertain and indistinct It is quite probable that in forgetting there can really be no question of a direct function of time From the repressed memory traces it can be verified that they suffer no changes even in the longest periods The unconscious, at all events, knows no time limit The most important as well as the most peculiar character of psychic fixation consists in the fact that all impressions are on the one hand retained in the same form as they were received, and also in the forms that they have assumed in their further development This state of affairs cannot be elucidated by any comparison from any other sphere By virtue of this theory every former state of the memory content may thus be restored, even though all original relations have long been replaced by newer ones [15] Cf here The Interpretation of Dreams, p 483· Macmillan: New York ; and Allen : London 102 ... degree in normal persons This led to a study of the faulty actions of everyday life and later to the publication of the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, a book which passed through four editions.. .Psychopathology of Everyday Life Sigmund Freud (1901) Translation by A A Brill (1914) CONTENTS Introduction Chapter Forgetting of Proper Names Chapter Forgetting of Foreign Words... Interpretation of Dreams I have shown the part played by process of condensation in the origin of the called manifest contents of the dream from latent thoughts of the dream Any similarity of objects or of